


Stroke of Genius

by orphan_account



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Drug Use, M/M, Rimming, Underage Drug Use, Yikes, but idk sex isn't the whole thing, i also don't know if this sucks or not, there's a 17 year age difference, there's a lot of ~soul searching~, this is actually pretty sexual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-03
Updated: 2014-03-03
Packaged: 2018-01-14 09:26:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1261291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry is everything Nick was when he was fifteen, except Harry's infinitely smarter. (Harry and Nick meet when Harry's tripping and stumbling around the park, and it gets out of hand, basically.)</p><p>*Edited: new ending*</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stroke of Genius

**Author's Note:**

> heeeeeeey i re-did the ending because someone brought to my attention that it was rushed. so hopefully it's a bit better. i'm not 100% pleased with it, but that's okay. hope you like it (:

Nick looks down at the napkin he’s been writing on and sighs. His date should be returning from the toilets soon. Maybe. Nick’s gone through half a glass of coke and completed his list, titled Things I Want. He doesn’t know quite what compelled him to write it, but he feels like a weight’s been lifted off his shoulders, so that’s nice. That doesn’t happen very often.

The waitress brings over his bill and Nick accepts that his date isn’t coming back. It’s not skin off his nose, though – he walked here himself, since he had declined the offers of the man he met here tonight to pick him up from his flat. And besides, he works practically every waking moment of his existence, so he can afford to pay for both their meals.

He doesn’t let himself feel offended. This whole thing is completely stupid, anyway. Finchy – Matt Fincham, that is – from work set it up, said Nick needs to get out more. Fuck that, he sniffs to himself on his walk back to his flat. What he needs is to get home, change into his pajamas, and read a book. He stopped partying when he turned thirty, two years ago. He’d decided that he was sick and tired of waking up in a stranger’s bed every Sunday morning. And now – well, he gets a bit lonely, but he finds that he’s happier on his own more often than not. 

If anything – and Nick doesn’t mean to linger; he’s not angry or anything – he’s upset because he thought he was going to get laid tonight. Nice, controlled, sober sex; nothing like before. 

The roads are surprisingly empty for a Friday night, and Nick theorizes that people are probably out having fun, partying with their friends. Or they’re at home with their families. Not like Nick, who just got ditched. Again.

But nope, he’s not going to let himself think about it. When he lets himself think about how upset he is, he can transform even the fondest memory into something bitter, disappointing.

Memories. Nick hasn’t made any in a while. Since he stopped partying he hasn’t really done much. His career has really taken off – enough for him to reside in a posh flat in Primrose Hill. There isn’t much time to do anything. He had to take off work to go on the date tonight, he remembers with a slightly sour twitch to his lips.

Deep in thought still – but positive thoughts now (he’s thinking of when Puppy finally learned how to roll over yesterday), he doesn’t realize that there’s a swaying boy on his path. And he doesn’t realize until he walks right into him.

“Oh, shit, I’m sorry,” Nick exclaims. “Are you alright? Do you need help?” The boy isn’t doing anything – not even a grimace of pain taints the blissful smile on his face.

For a moment, Nick ponders if maybe the boy is completely hammered. As a responsible adult, Nick is bothered. The boy looks not a day over sixteen. But then again, the boy didn’t look like he was drunkenly stumbling around; he’d looked like he was dancing. He still hasn’t acknowledged Nick’s presence. And now he’s sort of rolling side-to-side slightly. He supposes this must look a little bizarre – a thirty-something year old man leaning over a seemingly out-of-it teenage boy. So Nick smacks his face a little, just a little tap.

His eyes fly open, surprised. Except they don’t relax into a normal size, they stay wide. It’s really creepy. And in the light of the streetlamps above them, nick can see that his pupils are blown wide, only a tiny sliver of his eye color – is that green? – surrounding them.

Christ, what is he on? “Hey, hey, get up, kid.” Nick pulls the boy’s arm to get him to sit up. His curly, floppy hair falls into his face, completely unlike Nick’s carefully constructed quiff, which only flops on very bad days.

The boy’s got his surprised, unfocused gaze on Nick’s face, and he grins widely. “Wow,” he drawls. “You’re so beautiful.” Nick says nothing in reply, just helps the boy to his unsteady feet. “You’re an angel, aren’t you?”

“No, I’m not,” Nick denies, though he can feel his face heating up. “I’m going to get you home. Can you tell me where that is, love?” He puts an arm around the boy’s waist, who immediately burrows into Nick’s chest and rests nearly all his weight on the older man.

“Wherever you are, that’s my home,” the boy answers, still in that dazed, far away voice.

Nick groans. This _would_ happen to him. What the hell is he supposed to do with a drugged out young boy that he’s never met before a day in his life?

He takes him back to his flat.

\--

The first thing Nick scribbled on his napkin was: “A boyfriend,” which is vastly different from the rest of the list, which includes gems such as “passion for life” and “to be honest with myself.” When he’d left the restaurant, he shoved the napkin down his jacket pocket. Now he hands it to his new stranger as he wipes a bit of vom from the side of his mouth. As soon as the two of them had stepped inside his very expensive flat, the boy he’d brought home out of the goodness of his heart promptly got sick all over his floor.

He directs the boy to his bathroom to wash the taste out of his mouth. He walks with an odd shamble, his arms ever so slightly extended and his gait clumsy and uncoordinated. Though most likely a combination of both the boy’s baby horse legs and the drugs he’d taken, he still eerily resembles a zombie. Nick looks down at the sick, back up at the strange boy, and shudders.

By the time Nick cleans it up, all while juggling a dancing teenager and a dog (creatively named Puppy) that just loves to eat vomit, as most dogs do, he’s exhausted. His stranger is swaying to a Happy Mondays song on Nick’s record player. Nick hasn’t listened to them since he was nineteen. Steadily, Nick is regretting letting this crazy person into his home.

So he sits on his sofa, pulls out his book, and waits for it all to blow over. Eventually, it does, and the couch beside Nick dips, suddenly occupied by a sweaty teenager.

“Is the dance party over?” he teases, closing his book. He’s aiming for good-natured yet stern, like your favourite teacher from school. Truthfully, he’s been preparing his “don’t do drugs” speech for the past half hour.

“Yeah,” the boy replies. “I don’t know, mate. I think I’m coming back. I can’t walk anymore, anyway.”

Nick blanches. “Is that supposed to happen?”

The boy laughs. “Yeah, well, I mean – I don’t really know. It always happens to me. After a while everything goes a bit numb. I can’t even feel myself sitting right now, it feels like a dream.” His eyes roll in the back of his head and close. Nick isn’t sure if that’s less disturbing than seeing his wide, surprised, dilated eyes.

“What the fuck did you take?”

“I’m a dexxer.” Nick blinks at him. “I’m robotripping right now.” Still nothing. “It’s when you drink a lot of Robitussin – like, the cough syrup – and it’s got DXM in it, which is kind of like ketamine. It’s a dissociative; it’s really nice.”

Peeping open one eye and glancing at Nick’s bewildered expression, the boy continues, “The best part is that you completely lose touch of reality; everything’s different. Even the most familiar things can transform into something new and remarkable.” Harry’s eyes are half opened now, lazily staring Nick down. Nick feels like the younger one in this situation. “Earlier I felt like I was in love with you, and I wanted to kiss you. But I didn’t because I didn’t want you to leave me.”

“I wouldn’t have left you,” Nick says simply. He doesn’t really know what else to say. His “don’t do drugs” speech completely fizzled out and left his brain, and now all he wants to know is, “What’s your name?”

“Harry,” the boy, Harry, responds. “Yours?”

“Nick.” He lets loose a semi-hysterical burst of laughter. “Funny that we’re just now getting to know each other’s names, innit?”

Harry smiles serenely. “I’m sorry I threw up.”

“It’s okay,” Nick replies automatically. “How old are you?” That question’s been burning a hole in Nick’s brain all night. When he watched Harry dance and sway, he looked so young, yet his face held a peacefulness that went beyond his years. And now, he seems so relaxed and poised; something about him seems superior to Nick. It makes Nick’s head spin.

“I’m turning sixteen on February 1.” Nick lets out a long breath.

“You should get home, then. You wouldn’t want to get in trouble with you parents.” Nick feels unnaturally responsible. But then he thinks back to being Harry’s age, how crazy his parents were and how angry it made him to not have complete freedom to do anything he wanted. He doesn’t know if he wants to make Harry leave to prevent him from getting in trouble or humour him and let him stay a little while longer.

“They think I’m at my mate’s house. I can’t go home now, anyways. They’ll know I’m on something.” Harry looks sheepish, and it’s a comical expression when paired with the young boy’s dilated pupils. When he picks up on Nick’s blank star, he adds, “Can I please stay the night? I won’t be a bother, I swear. You won’t even notice I’m here.”

And Nick only relents because he feels a responsibility as an adult to make sure this child has a safe place to stay.

\--

When Nick wakes up, his body is warm and there’s a solid weight above him. He curses to himself; he hates when his one-night-stands don’t wake up and leave before him – it’s always messy and uncomfortable. It’s a nuisance to feel the need to be hospitable and offer breakfast even when he barely has time to eat something himself. He always has to leave for work.

Nick cranes his neck down and gets a face full of brunette curls, and then he remembers: the drugged out teenager begging to stay the night. Harry, that’s what his name is. He’s fifteen, almost sixteen. 

Another wave of sleepiness passes over Nick and he puts his head back down. In moments, he’s unconscious again.

\--

Nick peeps his eyes open, and then closes them again. The light beaming in from the open curtains is so bright. He gets up and stumbles down the stairs, craving a cup of tea. It isn’t until he’s stirring a bit of milk into his cup that he realizes his kitchen is spotless and his stove is on. Suspiciously walking about, he plucks up the piece on paper left on the stove top.

_Nick,_

_Sorry for being a bother. I was really messed up last night. Thanks for letting me stay. I made breakfast for you; it’s on a plate in the stove keeping warm. Also, your kitchen was a mess so I did the washing up – just in case you thought you were robbed by very helpful robbers or something. Thanks again!_

_\--Harry (my number’s on the back in case you want to hang out or something. You probably don’t, but I promise next time I won’t get sick everywhere.)_

Nick is unconsciously grinning, and he opens the door to the stove to see a plate of eggs, bacon, and toast. He doesn’t intend on calling Harry ever, but he still allows himself to enjoy the breakfast he made him. He hasn’t had breakfast in a long time.

As he finishes his meal, his eyes keep glancing back at the note, and before he can stop himself, he enters the number into his phone. And then he finds himself opening a new message, addressing it to Harry, and typing: “Thanks for the brekkie, hope you got home okay.” And he attaches a Muslim emoji, just because.

He throws himself into getting ready for work, throwing on his slacks and a tie. He doesn’t let himself check his phone until he’s taking a break from his office. It’s three in the afternoon and he hasn’t taken a break yet because there was a “crisis” with the computer system.

The younger boy had replied, “I hope you liked it! I did, you live pretty close to me.” And he’s attached two prawn emojis. 

He’s too distracted by his growling stomach to reply, not that he would have anyway. He shouldn’t give Harry the wrong idea. Letting a fifteen year old kip at his house was inappropriate enough; continuing to have a conversation with him would be taking it way too far. But, Nick is hungry, so he sneaks out of the office before anyone can ask a favor of him, tells his secretary he’ll be right back, and hopes that no one needs him while he’s gone.

He set on going to one of his usual haunts, but something pulls him toward a bakery down the street. He doesn’t even know what he could even eat at a bakery that could get him through the rest of his workday. So he walks past, makes for the sandwich shop next door, but he can’t help himself. He goes into the bakery.

It’s fairly empty, save for a student sitting on a fluffy chair in the corner on her laptop. The bakery has a comforting quality to it. There are a few mismatched chairs scattered around, all fluffy and soft-looking. Some are warn and old, other newer. The menu is done in chalk. It’s all very endearing.

Having heard the bell above the door chime, a boy walks out. Nick, having no idea what he wants, walks forward.

“Welcome, what can I get for you?” the boy asks in a heavy Irish accent.

“I don’t know, mate. What’s the best thing here?”

“Harry makes the best lattes, get one of those. Oh, and he just made these biscuits,” he points to some buttery, sweet looking things. “so they’re still warm.”

Nick just nods, smiles and pulls out his card – because _Harry_ and he doesn’t know why he’s so hopeful that it’s _his_ Harry – well, not his but the Harry that he met last night.

And then out he comes: his-but-not-really-his Harry. And his hair is tied back with a scrap of fabric and Nick’s heart just swells. He doesn’t know why. But Harry comes out and his eyes light up and he rushes toward the counter like a puppy.

“How’d you know I work here?” he asks, beside himself. Next to him, the Irish boy – Niall, according to his nametag – raises and eyebrow.

“I didn’t. It was a lucky guess.” He doesn’t even know what he’s saying anymore. Harry makes that happen, apparently. He’s still got something about him that makes him seem superior to Nick. It makes Nick’s hands quiver.

Regardless, Harry grins and goes a bit pink. He turns and gets to making Nick’s drink. Nick watches as the two boys talk and laugh about something. He’s entranced by Harry’s expressiveness and personality, until, “Right, Nick?” He blinks the dazedness out of his eyes and directs his attention to Harry.

“What?”

The boys laugh, and Nick’s face heats up. God, this is like school again. Fitting, seeing as they’re both _school_ boys. Harry hands Nick his drink, opens his mouth, then closes it. Then he smiles, his dimples showing slightly.

“I know you’re working, but if you weren’t, then I’d ask you to join me for my lunch break.”

Harry’s grin widens until it nearly takes up his whole face. “What if I had a break?”

\--

Harry’s face lights up like a star whenever he laughs, and it fascinates Nick. And he laughs constantly, he’s always smiling. He’s so interesting; he has something to say about everything.

Nick sits next to Harry on the fluffy chairs, and Harry is telling him about the music he likes. He likes everything, he says. Well, not really. He doesn’t have anything against any type of music; he gives everything a chance. His favorite band is the Smashing Pumpkins because they make him the right kind of emotional.

“I don’t listen to them when I’m tripping, though,” Harry adds, taking a bite of the biscuit Nick offers him. “It doesn’t sound as good as like, say Led Zeppelin or Pink Floyd. When I’m tripping, I like music with like…an ethereal quality – and guitar solos. I like to be taken to a whole new world.”

“When I was younger, I was a lot like you --” Nick cuts himself off when Harry rolls his eyes. “What?”

The boy smiles ruefully. “I was hoping we’d skip the whole, ‘when I was younger’ thing. We’re not very different now; we have a lot in common.”

“But you’re changing every day – five years from now you’re be a whole new person,” Nick reasons. Well, it’s true. He was a completely different person when he was twenty as opposed to fifteen; he grew up a lot. Well, not really. But Harry is a lot smarter than Nick was at fifteen, so.

“So are you,” Harry retaliates, poking Nick in the shoulder. Nick finds himself smiling involuntarily. “The way I see it, people should constantly be changing and learning. If you don’t then, I don’t know. You’re boring.”

It startles a laugh out of Nick. “I hope you’re not telling me I’m boring.”

“Not at all!” Harry’s eyes look fierce. “I think you’re way more exciting than you give yourself credit for.” He lifts his hips up and pulls a phone out of his pocket, clicking it and glancing down. “I have to get back to work. I have to make scones for later tonight. For some reason, people love having scones in the evening.”

Nick swallows. He feels the side of his once warm cup; it’s cool. “I have to get back to work as well.” He thinks of the multitude of missed phone calls, e-mails he needs to respond to, and he doesn’t feel too bothered.

\--

Nick sits in his office, answering e-mails and preparing for meetings. He hasn’t really had time to think since he came in this morning. He underestimated how much work would pile up. It’s all very boring, he realizes as his eyes are slipping closed. He checks his watch – it’s ten at night. He goes home.

\--

“Come out with us, Grimmy, it’ll be fun,” Aimee’s voice pleads on Saturday night. He opens his mouth to decline, but then he looks around at his nearly empty flat, at the cup of tea in front of him, at his pajamas, at the tele, and he tells her he’ll meet her at the pub in twenty minutes.

The pub is just like he remembered. As soon as he’s inside, he feels young and out of place, yet so in his element at the same time. It’s sickening.

Aimee and Ian are sitting at the bar and they grin at Nick when he saunters over. The floor sticks to the bottom of his shoes. “Grimmy,” Aimee exclaims, wrapping him up in her long, skinny arms. Her bracelets jingle against the back of his neck, cold metal against the sweat. “I haven’t seen you in forever. I think Gellz is coming soon.” She pulls away and takes a look at his face. “How’ve you been?”

“Great, I’ve been great – a bit knackered from work, to be honest.”

She’s got on her signature wry smile on her face. “Hopefully not knackered enough not to dance with me sometime tonight, right?”

“Aimee,” Nick admonishes, taking his spot beside her after giving Ian a manly sort of handshake-thing. “We’ve been here thousands of times; when will you realize this is not the dancing type of place?”

“When will you realize that I do what I want?”

He relaxes into the situation, lets it cover him like a warm blanket. “Let me buy you a drink, mate,” Ian offers over Nick and Aimee’s bellowing laughter.

And then the warm feeling is gone. “No, that’ s alright, really,” he resists, but Ian’s already beckoning the bartender over. Suddenly there’s a jack and coke in front of him, his old favorite.

He artfully avoids it, using anecdotes and jokes to distract them from realising his drink is untouched. He allows his eyes to skate across the room and notices a head of curly hair, and blinks. _Harry_.

His chest aches. Harry is being fawned over – apparently – by two women. Who knows how old they are, but they have laugh lines on their cheeks and they drink with finesse that Harry shouldn’t be seeing. He sees Harry toss back a shot amid the women’s cheering, and something in Nick snaps.

He shoots up from his barstool and strides over to where the fifteen year old is sitting. Harry’s face lights up when he sees Nick, but then it melts into something sheepish. Nick just grabs him, hauls him to his feet, and drags him outside. Behind him, he faintly hears, “Christ, was that his father?”

“Nick, Nick, let go of me,” but he can’t, not until he hears, “Nick, you’re hurting me.” He looks behind him and sees Aimee and Ian lurking in the doorway, wary and perplexed. Nick makes a desperate noise and stalks down the street. He’s unsure if Harry is following until he hears a very soft, “Nick,” right behind him.

He stops, turns, and puts his hands on Harry’s shoulders. “You can’t go to places like that, Harry. You can’t be around people like that.”

Teenage stubbornness blooms in the young boy’s expression like weeds in a garden. “Why didn’t you freak out when I was tripping in your flat? Why when I’m drinking?”

“I --” Harry’s glazed over eyes feel fierce, and he looks nothing like the boy who softly called Nick’s name not even a minute ago. “I can’t tell you.”

Harry groans. “Come on, Nick – you can’t just drag me out here and not give me an explanation.”

Nick crumbles. He falls forward onto Harry’s shoulder, ignores the oof Harry makes, and starts to cry. He feels Harry stroke his back. Harry stumbles back and sits on the sidewalk, Nick half-lying in his lap. This is ridiculous. He lets out some embarrassing sob-like noise and shoves his face in Harry’s neck.

“It’s okay, Nicky, you don’t have to tell me,” Harry assures him in that soft voice.

“Don’t call me Nicky,” he grumbles, nuzzling closer to Harry’s warmth.

“Nicky,” Harry coos. He pulls Nick closer and plants a kiss on his forehead. Nick can’t bring himself to pull away, not yet.

“I’m so drunk,” Harry mutters.

“Do you like it?”

Harry pauses. “No, I don’t think so. I just feel tired…and, and horny.”

Nick inhales a hitched breath. He pulls away, looks at Harry’s glazed eyes, bitten lips, and scoots further away. Harry asks, “Can I stay the night at your flat, please?” And he should say no, but he can’t imagine letting Harry walk him like this, disoriented and visibly intoxicated. He sighs, nods his head, and leads Harry away to his car.

He lets Harry sleep on his chest because he knows how horrible it is to be drunk alone. He _knows_. And if he buries his face in Harry’s hair a few times and breathes him in – well, he won’t do it again.

Harry murmurs in his sleep, little unintelligible things, and it’s probably just Nick’s imagination, but he thinks he hears, “Nicky,” a few times. He pointedly ignores the smile that pulls at his lips when he hears it.

When he wakes up, Harry’s still cuddled into him. He pulls away and gets up to brush his teeth. Downstairs, he makes tea, and he remembers the crazy events from the night before, so he grabs a bottle of water and a bottle of paracetamol. Back in Nick’s bedroom, Harry is still asleep, clutching Nick’s pillow to him. He must be a cuddler, Nick muses as he leans against the doorframe. He wants to stroke his hair, let him sleep on him again, but he knows he can’t.

He gently shakes Harry’s shoulder, and the boy groans. “Harry, wake up, you have to go to school.”

He grumbles and flips over to his stomach. “I have a bottle of water and some medicine for you. Come on, get up.”

“Can you come lie down with me for five more minutes, please?” he mumbles into the pillow.

Nick sighs. He flops down onto the bed and Harry makes a satisfied noise. He picks up Nick’s hand and places it on his head. “I like when you touch my hair. You were doing it last night.”

Nick relents and strokes the boy’s hair for the next few minutes. Harry makes a snuffly little murmur and presses his body closer to Nick’s. Scooting up, he presses his lips to Nick’s cheek and leaves them there.

Nick breathes in deep and grips Harry’s hips tightly. He letting it go too far, he thinks. It’s not friendly anymore, not innocent.

“Harry…” he murmurs.

“I’ve never felt this way with anyone before,” Harry breathes onto Nick’s jaw.

“That’s because you’re fifteen,” Nick counters drily.

“No,” Harry grumbles, leaning up on his elbows. His face is right in Nick’s, and he looks intent. “No one’s ever interested me like you do. I’ve never met anymore who cared about me as much as you seem to.” He makes a hurt noise, collapsing on Nick and returning his face to his neck. “My head hurts.”

Nick rubs Harry’s head. “You’re dehydrated, love.” He leans up, cradling Harry against his chest, and grabs the water and pills. “Take these.” He indulges himself one kiss against Harry’s forehead and the younger boy’s grimace melts into a smile. “Now get up and get ready.” The smile melts off of his face.

Harry surges forward, slowing at the last moment and capturing Nick’s lips in a sweet, yet passionate kiss. Nick moves his lips against Harry’s slowly, a simple rhythm that has Nick curling his toes; he hasn’t kissed someone like this in _years_. But he has to stop it; he can’t take advantage of Harry like this. The age difference…seventeen years is too much. Obviously. Perhaps, Nick ponders, it’s such a ridiculous thought – him comingling with a fifteen year old – that it can’t even penetrate his mind, for the sake of his sanity. Maybe it’s like how when you think of…how vast the universe is, or how crazy it is that human beings exist and they’ve gone from beating things with sticks and stones to creating things like iPods and shit, and you’ve got to stop because your brain just can’t comprehend it.

Somehow through Nick’s soul-searching, the kiss has developed into something heavier, something Nick’s more familiar with. But it’s still different. It’s different because when Nick thinks of Harry, his heart swells and he can’t stop the overwhelming fondness that proliferates through his body. And when Harry touches him, the spot tingles, and he just wants more. He wants everything, but he can’t have it.

He can’t have it, yet he wraps his arms tighter around the boy until Harry’s lower half is pressed into Nick’s stomach, and Harry’s straddling his hips. His tongue is in Harry’s mouth now, and it’s as sweet and heart wrenchingly endearing as Nick imagined it to be. He pushes Harry back against the bed so they’re lying backwards on it, and Harry spreads his legs to let Nick get close to him and God.

Nick kisses Harry’s neck because he knows how good it feels, especially when you’re young and inexperienced like Harry. As expected, Harry inhales a deep breath, and Nick keeps at it. He kisses and sucks all around until he finds a spot, down at where Harry’s shoulder and neck meet, that makes Harry moan. It sounds choked and embarrassed, like he physically couldn’t hold it back, and that does something to Nick. He sucks harder at the spot, biting and licking it until he’s positive there’s a dark mark there.

Harry’s body tenses and he grips onto Nick’s body painfully. He inhales deep breaths, and on the third inhale, he exhales a little noise that sounds like, “uhhh,” and Nick bites his shoulder. He _came_. He came just from Nick sucking his neck.

“God,” Harry mutters, tucking his face back in its rightful place in Nick’s neck. “That was embarrassing.”

Nick pulls away and just looks at him. He feels his mouth opening and closing; he feels his hair drooping. He makes a strangled noise and sits up.

“Nick,” Harry says. It sounds like a warning. “Don’t freak out yet. You’re still hard. Wank over me.” When Nick does nothing, he continues. “Come on, Nick, wank off over me. I want you to come on me.” Harry’s face is bright red, but his eyes are glassy and determined. He wants this, and Nick can’t believe it. The boy is fifteen; he thinks he knows what he wants but he doesn’t.

But Nick’s so, so turned on. He reaches a hand in his pants and pulls out his dick. It’s curved to the side slightly, and it’s already leaking. He can smell the must, the telltale scent of semen permeating from his pants where Harry’s cum seeped through. He breathes it in deep and moves his hand on himself.

Harry watches him, watches his face, his hand, his cock. It’s nerve-wracking in a brilliant way. The sun beams in at gleams off Harry’s hair and body, making him glow. He’s like a little angel, Nick thinks. A fallen angel, with the way his cock’s out again. How is he hard already? It must be nice being just a boy, Nick reckons. He can’t even remember when his refractory period was that short.

“Come on me, Nick,” Harry demands, his voice thick and his hand moving quicker. “Come on, I’m gonna come.” So Nick moves faster and gets closer to Harry, fisting a hand in the boy’s hair and tilting his face up.

“You want me to come on your face, baby?” Nick asks. His voice is dark; he sounds nothing like himself. He’s so fucking turned on. “You want that?”

Harry whimpers. “Yes, yes, yes,” he chants, and Nick feels cum splash up his back. It’s a catalyst for him; he splashes his cum against Harry’s face, and it drips down from his cheeks to his lips. Harry licks it off, closing his eyes. There’s a glob of it making its way down his neck, thick and white. Nick leans forward and gathers it into his mouth. Then he captures Harry’s lips with his own. He’s never felt so close to someone; he never knew sex could feel this way.

He breathes onto Harry’s lips and gathers the boy into his arms. Harry’s shaking, and Nick rubs his back and murmurs to him how beautiful and smart and creative and talented he is, and Harry murmurs back that Nick is everything he’s ever wanted. And Nick lets himself believe it, if only for a moment.

\--

They fall back asleep, and Nick wakes up to find Harry tucked into his arms, out cold and naked. His eyes travel down the boy’s long body. It’s so soft, but Nick can tell in a few years he’ll develop into something muscular and lean. Still, he thinks Harry’s body now is nice. He lets his hands travel down the boy’s back, to his arse. He runs his hands over it and the boy stirs in his sleep.

“Nicky,” he murmurs and cuddles closer to Nick. Nick brings his hands up to stroke the boy’s hair. Harry lifts his head up to blink blearily at him, then leans forward to capture Nick’s lips in a kiss. It intensifies quickly, and soon Harry’s rutting down against Nick’s hip. “Nick, please,” he mutters.

“Please what?” Nick mumbles back as the boy presses hot, open mouth kisses to Nick’s neck.

Harry makes a strangled noise and bites Nick’s neck, hard. “I want you to fuck me.” And Nick takes a deep inhale, breathes out _no_.

“I can’t,” Nick murmurs, running his hands through Harry’s curls. “I would, though, if you were older.”

Harry sighs. “I just.” He shifts so that he’s sitting on Nick’s legs. He looks straight into Nick’s eyes. He doesn’t know how he feels about it, to be honest. Nick’s never met anyone so straightforward, so unabashed and pure. “I feel so connected to you. And…I know we’ve only just met, but I feel like you understand me, even if you don’t want to.”

The thing about Harry is that he verbalizes things in such a way that Nick’s never seen before. He has a refreshing new take on everything, no matter how basic the idea. He riles up Nick’s brain in the most novel way. “I feel the same way, love.” Nick presses a kiss down onto Harry’s head. He’s not very good with his words, but Harry seems to prefer talking about everything. Maybe Nick ought to improve his speaking skills, anyway. He’s always been so frustrated at his ineptness at talking about his emotions.

“Can you just kiss me?” Harry breathes and leans down, resting his hands on Nick’s shoulders and ghosting his breath along Nick’s jaw. Nick does, wrapping Harry up and kissing him deeply.

“You have to go to school now,” Nick tells him.

“Why should I go now? I never went before. I doubt they even know I ever went there in the first place?”

And Nick…Nick isn’t going to be a fucking parent to Harry. He’s not going to blindly demand things of him, not even taking the time to listen to Harry’s side. That’s not his place. “Why don’t you go?”

Harry sighs. “I just feel like there’s nothing there for me.” He scoots away from Nick. “I mean. What the fuck am I supposed to do? Become a doctor, a social worker? Fuck that. I’d rather be homeless and starve to death than give into that institutionalized bullshit.” He huffs. “I’m not a fucking sheep, you know? No offense.”

Nick shrugs. “It’s alright, love.” He tries to think of what he wanted to hear when he was Harry’s age, what nobody would tell him. “You’ve got to make your own decisions. Whatever you feel is best for you, just do it.”

Harry smiles at him. It’s sweet and appreciative. He crawls forward into Nick’s embrace again.

\--

“Do you like what you do?” Harry asks Nick in the evening, when they’re sitting outside on Nick’s roof.

“Not always,” he answers honestly. “But I can’t think of anything I’d want to do more. I like the money I make, I like that it keeps my mind occupied.”

“Occupied from what?”

Harry leans his head onto Nick’s shoulder, and nuzzles into the older man’s neck. Through the course of the day, Nick’s learned that this is Harry’s subconscious request for head pets. He runs his hands through Harry’s hair.

“I don’t know – everything, I guess.” Nick sighs. “I mean, I’ve had a lot of bad things happen to me…but I guess every old person can attest to that.”

“You’re not that old,” Harry counters. Perhaps he’s just trying to convince himself. “What kinds of bad things?”

“I…had a rough period of my life. I partied too much, drank too much. I,” Nick swallows. It feels too real to talk about it. “I had a bit of a drinking problem. But it’s okay now. It’s hard sometimes, though.”

“Is that why…” Harry lifts his head up. “I’m sorry, Nick. That’s shit.” He squeezes Nick’s shoulder. “But those bad things make you a smarter person, I think. Like, the more you experience, the wiser you get. I suppose it’s better for your life to be shit and be smart than have a dull life and just be a basic prototype of a human being, you know?”

Harry reclaims his position against Nick’s shoulder, and the sun goes down completely. He keeps stroking Harry’s head.

\--

Harry shows up at his flat a week later, eyes red and pupils dilated. “I’m so fucking horny, Nick,” he breathes as he presses up against Nick’s front. “Please touch me, please.” He gets down onto his knees, nuzzling the front of Nick’s trackies. “I wanna suck your dick.” He mouths at the fabric, and Nick pulls him up.

“Ask me when you’re sober, baby.”

He takes Harry into his kitchen, where he makes Harry a bowl of cereal. The boy is stoned as a gravel road, and it’s as funny as it is concerning. Harry’s telling him a story of him and his mates at the cinema earlier this evening, watching the Hobbit. It was a crazy spiritual journey, Harry tells him, mouth full of sugary processed grain. Then he starts laughing his arse off.

But eventually he sobers up, and he moves from his seat in an armchair to Nick’s lap, and Nick can feel his erection pressing into him. So Nick relents and kisses Harry deeply, but the younger boy wants more than that. He gets onto his knees on the carpet and pulls Nick’s pants down.

“What do I do, Nicky?” Harry asks as he nuzzles his face into Nick’s cock. Nick can’t breathe.

“Uh,” he stammers. “Cover your teeth with your lips. You know the spot under the head? – Focus on that – yeah, like that. Yeah, _yeah_.” Harry’s a natural. He presses his tongue to the spot and rubs it in slow stripes. The rest of Nick’s cock he works with his two hands. He looks like he fucking loves it so much.

Harry pushes down farther and saliva drips down Nick’s cock. He loves when it’s like this; he loves when the person sucking him off isn’t afraid of getting messy with it. He loves it even more because it’s Harry, his Harry.

“Don’t touch yourself,” he orders Harry. He could see the boy sneaking a hand down his jeans. Harry moans and sucks Nick’s cock harder.

Nick’s been rocking his hips into Harry’s mouth slightly; slowly the pleasure is intensifying, getting stronger with every rock. It’s spreading throughout his body now, and when Harry leans back a bit to focus solely on the head, Nick loses it and comes. Harry laps it up and crawls onto Nick, giving him a hot open-mouthed kiss. Usually, Nick isn’t one for tasting his own come, but mixed with the sweet taste of Harry, it’s perfect.

Harry grinds his hips against Nick’s stomach, and Nick holds him still. “I want to do something,” he tells the young boy. “You have to trust me, though, okay?” Harry nods, a far away glazed look in his eye.

Nick picks up Harry and sets him onto the carpet on his stomach, sliding a couch pillow under his slim hips. He pulls down the boy’s jeans and pants, revealing his pert bum. Nick takes a deep breath.

“Have you ever eaten someone out, Harry?” Nick asks, pressing his thumbs into Harry’s cheeks, pulling them aside slightly to reveal his hole.

Harry moans and squirms. “Yes,” he answers. “A few girls.”

Hot jealousy floods through Nick. “Have you ever been eaten out, then?”

He sees the muscles in Harry’s back, slight but still there, ripple. “No.”

“Do you want to be?”

“Yes.”

Nick leans down and licks widely over Harry’s hole. The boy gasps and arches his arse out. Nick taps it lightly and licks him again. Harry’s so clean and delicate tasting, he could do this for hours.

He finds an angle and pace that really makes Harry fall apart and sticks to it. Harry’s knees fall open and slowly the boy’s hole widens so that Nick can get his tongue inside comfortably. Whenever Nick’s tongue goes in, Harry’s hips follow him, and whenever Nick pulls out, Harry pushes his dick forward into the pillow. He’s so loud, making crying noises and moaning when Nick does something he really likes.

“Nicky,” Harry pants. “I’m gonna come.” Nick rashly sticks two fingers into Harry’s arse deep and curves them up, locating Harry’s prostate. Harry absolutely screams and tenses, then he sobs. Nick flips him over to see that Harry’s cock is still spurting out thick white come, and Nick leans down to lick it up.

He loves how a cock looks right after it has come. He loves the strands dripping off of it, how it pulses weakly still. He especially loves how Harry’s looks. It won’t stop dribbling. Harry’s got tears running down his face, so Nick scoops him up into a hug and coos at him.

He whispers sweet-nothings to Harry – well, it’s not nothing. He whispers how gorgeous Harry is, how beautiful and pure his soul is, and he presses kisses into Harry’s hair and tells him he loves him. It’s true, and he loves that Harry doesn’t make a big deal of it, just murmurs lovely things back at him and kisses him. He doesn’t even mind that Nick’s tongue’s just been up an arse.

\--

“Do you ever feel completely hopeless, Nick?” Harry asks the next morning.

“Of course I do, lovely. Everyone does.”

“No, I mean, really. Like, I feel like there’s nothing for me, at all. I’ve got my band and people like us, but nobody gets it, and I feel like no one but us and you ever will. It’s scary. I don’t want to be alone. I don’t want to live in a fucked up world. I don’t wanna die in one, either.”

Nick presses a kiss to Harry’s closed eyelid. “If you can’t make the whole world better, make your world better, okay, love? Everyone you meet, show them your whole self. You can change the world one person at a time.”

“Nick,” Harry laughs. “I suck.” Nick laughs, too. “I don’t make anyone a better person.”

“That’s not true,” Nick argues. “You make me a better person.”

“Oh, sure,” Harry retorts. “Fucking a kid, that definitely makes you a good person.”

Nick swallows. Harry looks up at Nick’s face and curses. “Shit, mate, I didn’t mean it like that. I was just fucking with you.” Nick says nothing. “I didn’t mean it, I’m sorry.”

Nick shakes his head. “No, you should leave.”

Harry turns red. “No, Nick, I love you, please don’t.”

“Just,” Nick takes a deep breath. “Get the fuck out of here, Harry. I don’t want you here.”

Harry’s face breaks and he storms out of Nick’s flat. Nick doesn’t wonder if Harry gets home safe, since it just started raining and all. He can’t. He’s a bad person.

\--

“So,” Aimee greets him on the phone. “What ever happened with you? Like, you ran off after that kid and now you don’t talk to me for weeks. What the fuck, Nick?”

“I don’t know, Aims.” Nick sighs. “Everything is so fucked up.”

“Yeah, it is,” Aimee agrees. She’s got her arguing voice on, and Nick can’t bring himself to care. “You what else is fucked up? Only calling me when you need to complain about something. I mean, God, Nick, we used to be so close. Then you got sober and for some reason, completely self-obsessed. What happened to the old Nick?”

“He grew the fuck up.”

“No, he didn’t. You’re still as unstable as before; you’re still hiding from your problems – you know, maybe work for you is your new drug, yeah? The only thing that’s changed about you is that you don’t care about anyone but yourself anymore.” Aimee hangs up.

Everything is so fucked up. But maybe it’s always been that way.

\--

Matt Fincham sits before Nick, his face downturned into a frown. “Are you sure you want to do this, Grim?”

Nick sighs. “Yes, I’m sure.”

“But why? This is a job most people only dream about.”

Nick can’t imagine people dreaming about paper pushing and being talked down to by haughty executives, but he’ll take Finchy’s word for it. “Well, I don’t want it anymore.” Nick shrugs. “I think I’m all worked out, to be honest.”

To Matt Fincham, Nick might as well be speaking a foreign language, and his dubious look gives Nick a moment of second-guessing himself, but. Then he thinks of Harry’s devastated face and Aimee’s scorn over the phone, and he excuses himself to clean his things out of his office.

\--

Nick has to move out of his flat, but it’s okay because there’s a vomit stain on his carpet. He scrubs at it for an hour with stain remover, but it won’t come out – it’s bright red, too, because, you know, cough syrup. So Nick improvises and slides a decorative rug over it, hoping no one will notice.

No one ever does, he assumes, because he never gets any angry calls. Perhaps maybe a part of him wishes he did, because it all seems too simple. He made his decision: he quit his job, moved out of his flat a day later, and now he’s putting away his clothes in his new flat, above his new job at an art store. Yet it seems unfinished.

He feels unfinished. Dialing a familiar number, he waits as it rings. “Hello,” a voice rings out, a voice he hasn’t heard in months.

“Aimee,” he breathes out. “I’m sorry.”

It’s quiet for a moment, and then Aimee says, “I’m sorry, too.”

And it all starts to fall into place.

\--

It’s raining on Nick’s way home from Aimee’s flat, and Nick takes shelter in a pub. There’s a band onstage, and the emcee announces them as White Eskimo. The lead singer’s got curly hair and he’s a lot older looking than the last time Nick saw him.

Nick orders a tap water. Harry’s band is actually quite good. When Harry told him about it some time ago, he expected a typical teenage garage band – screamy and angry and uncaring about how the music actually sounds. But, Nick waivers, perhaps Harry really doesn’t care how the music sounds, because Harry was, and probably still is, a screamy, angry teenager. 

He thinks back to Harry’s words the night Nick made him leave. _I’ve got my band and people like us, but nobody gets it, and I feel like no one but us and you ever will._ They’re burned into Nick’s mind, and despite how different Nick is now to how he was then, he can’t forget them.

He wonders if he’s still the only person who gets Harry, besides his band. Maybe a strange sick part of Nick hopes he is, but the majority of him wants Harry’s life to be easier. He wants Harry to fall into success and happiness…He knows Harry wants to live some sort of ascetic lifestyle of misery and trouble, whether he’ll admit it or not – but Nick doesn’t want that. He wishes he could help Harry, but he shouldn’t.

Nick’s come to a few conclusions, one of which being that he was toxic to Harry. And maybe Harry didn’t even really like Nick for Nick, despite all his claims otherwise. Maybe Harry just liked him because he was damaged.

As he watches Harry perform, listens to his deep voice and poetic lyrics, he can’t help but fall in love with him again. Harry isn’t like alcohol; he isn’t a drug. Nick can’t avoid Harry and find an alternative solution to him – Harry is one of a kind, and being around him insights all the emotions Nick felt back when he was able to hold him in his arms and love him.

Nick sighs. He should leave. As he stands, he meets Harry’s eyes for a fraction of a second, but he turns around and hears Harry’s voice falter ever so slightly. He doesn’t think about it – he needs to move on.

As he walks down the street, the rain comes down harder, but he doesn’t walk faster. He kind of likes it – it feels cleansing. One never feels quite as dirty as after sitting on sticky barstools in a smokey, smelly pub.

“Nick, Nick, wait up!” he hears behind him, and he stops and turns only to have someone slam into him.

A large hand offers him help up, and he looks up at Harry’s beaming face. “Just like old times, yeah?”

Nick stands before Harry now. “Aren’t you supposed to be performing right now?”

“No, that was our last song. Did you like it?”

Nick can’t help the smile that tugs at his lips. “Yeah, you’re really good.” But he knows Harry wants more. “Your lyrics are really powerful. You guys sounded really unique.”

Something passes over Harry’s expression. “Nick, I love you.”

He sighs. “Do you want to come to my flat? It’s just up the road.”

\--

Harry looks bigger in Nick’s small studio flat, but maybe that’s just because he’s grown. He’s filled out a lot; he’s all long, lean muscle now. But then he’ll smile and Nick will see the boy he first fell in love with.

“Nick,” Harry murmurs again later, when they’re sitting on the fire escape. It stopped raining. “I love you.” He presses his face into Nick’s neck, his rightful spot.

Nick wraps his arm around Harry’s shoulders, though they’re almost too broad to do so. “I love you, too. I never stopped.”

“Me neither.” Harry sighs. “I’m so sorry about what happened. I didn’t mean it.”

“It’s okay.” Harry scoffs. “Really, it is.”

“You seem different now,” Harry says a few beats later. “Like, you burn brighter or something. You seem less guarded. I feel like I can know you better; it’s nice.”

Nick presses his lips to Harry’s hair, now dry and fluffy. “Thank you.” He takes a deep breath. “Is that why you used to like me?”

“What do you mean? I still like you. I love you.”

“No,” Nick says. “Is that why you initially liked me? Because I was all fucked up and miserable?”

Harry pulls his head up and looks at Nick’s troubled eyes. Then he laughs. “No, Nick, are you mental?” He settles back against Nick. “All I’ve ever wanted is for you to be happy. I liked you because you were different, like. You actually cared, and you showed it. You’ve never held back with me.”

Nick smiles. Harry shuffles so that he’s facing Nick on the step below where Nick sits, and he presses their lips together.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!!


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